[ExI] Muslim and Supermuslim: Toward Islamic transhumanism?

[Giulio Prisco]

I am happy with the conclusion that there are assholes among both atheists
and believers, but my point is that the “arguments” of atheists against
believers can be redirected at the atheists themselves, who often behave
exactly like fundamentalist believers.

On 2020. Feb 28., Fri at 10:39, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 28/02/2020 07:34, Giulio Prisco wrote:
>
> No trolling intended Ben, sorry if my post came across that way.
>
> I consider some expressions of atheism as a religion, because they
> exhibit many defining features of organized religions: Certainty of
> having all the answers, us against them, intolerance of those who
> disagree, at times open hatred. These are the bad features of
> organized religions, so in a certain sense atheism (of the militant,
> intolerant sort) is worse than traditional religions, because it has
> the bad features of religion without the good ones. I often say that
> atheism is the only religion with a really boring mythology.
>
> Of course this applies to **some expressions** of atheism (of the
> militant, intolerant sort). I consider open-minded, live-and-let-live
> atheists as fellow seekers.
>
>
> You're talking about two different things.
>
> As Richard Dawkins has said, atheism is a religion in the same way that
> not collecting stamps is a hobby.
>
> If someone asks me what team sports I participate in, I don't (usually)
> reply "not playing football".
>
> If I try to stop other people from playing football, that's not a
> consequence of my not playing football, it's a consequence of my being an
> arsehole. Not playing football doesn't require one to try to prevent
> football-playing in others. In fact, it doesn't require (or, in itself lead
> to) anything except the lack of personal football-playing.
>
> On the other hand, most religions do require their subjects to suppress
> other religions, in various ways, up to and including killing
> 'non-believers', in the more extreme (usually 'fundamentalist') versions.
>
> So if someone is an atheist, and a bigot, those are two different things.
> Atheism does not require one to be a bigot. Christianity, for example (in
> most of its forms), does.
>
> You may hold up the example of Jainism as an example of a non-intolerant
> religion. Good for Jainism. That does't make atheism a religion, though.
> Jainism is still a set of beliefs.
>
> Getting into the actual definition of the word 'religion' is a rabbit
> warren, with no real satisfactory conclusion. Some people have even
> concluded that the word is not really meaningful at all, but most people
> have something in mind when they use it. And all of the various somethings
> that they have in mind are not applicable to atheism, because they refer to
> the *presence* of various factors, not the lack of them.
>
> This is the core concept that it seems many people have trouble
> understanding about atheism, and is maybe why it gets misrepresented so
> much. It's not a belief, not a religion, not a social movement, or a club
> or a political stance, or even a world-view. It's simply the lack of a
> belief in supernatural beings and phenomena.
>
> The fact that some people who lack such beliefs are also bigots is beside
> the point, and calling someone a 'fundamentalist atheist' is meaningless.
> It's like talking about a temperature below absolute zero (without any
> exotic physics, please). Similarly, calling someone a 'militant atheist' is
> like calling someone a violent non-golfer. They may be a violent person,
> but they cannot violently not play golf, it's simply not possible. And if
> they violently try to prevent other people from playing golf, well, they're
> just an arsehole.
>
> --
>
> Ben Zaiboc
>
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